Another day and it’s the same story. You just got the position description. It’s time to post it on your usual sites, muddle through your social media sites, sift through resumes and hope you get a great candidate at the end of the often too-long process. Or is it time to try something else? What if recruiting got a makeover? Finding niche skills or upper management positions may require recruiters to tap into the creative side of things. Usually, top talent is employed elsewhere. Here are five unique ways to grab a candidate’s attention:
1. Go to them.
Hiring often includes job seekers pursuing you – where it’s online or at a career fair (with those dreaded lines). Make sure your recruiting isn’t just one way. Get out to job seekers, and be innovative in how you do it. One organization developed 15-second low budget but intriguing commercials to air at a local movie theater near their headquarters.The same organization created a mobile hiring center with a cheap RV to drive to targeted competitors during the lunch hour. Find ways to get to your candidates – don’t just settle for recruiting inside the box.
2. Challenge them.
Creative challenges or contests (like the Department of Defense robotics contest) can help you uncover top talent – especially for niche positions. Put your contest or challenge where your ideal candidates can find them. Think websites, wraps on company cars or billboards. In the online social world, find a way to go viral. Challenges can include hackathons, photo contests or even trivia.
3. Empower your employees.
Load up your employees with special recruiting business cards. Challenge them, train them, and then reward them for referrals. Firsthand accounts of how awesome your company is can easily win potential candidates over to your side. Don’t neglect this tool in your recruiting box.
4. Poach from your competitors.
That doesn’t sound very nice, but really, this is what it means to recruit passive candidates. Let’s call a spade a spade. Find out your competitors’ local lunch spot. Give ideal candidates a fun piece of technology with your company brand on it as a way to invite the candidate to start conversing with you. It may seem over the top, but for high demand positions like cybersecurity, innovative recruiting could be the ticket for scoring top talent.
5. Go undercover.
Get out from behind your desk (and computer and smartphone) and interact with candidates. Attend conferences or events that put you face-to-face with candidates. Personal interaction provides a view of exactly how hard working and determined a candidate really is. The key is finding your recruiting edge. That might mean tapping into gamification or finding a better social media strategy. Just don’t forget that when it comes to hotly contested positions, it is a talent war. You have to out-strategize your competitor’s recruiting.
